Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), has been unable to effectively utilize more than 50 million citizens’ raw data provided by provincial revenue authorities and departments for broadening the tax base and registering wealthy individuals.

Sources told Nukta that the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) has shared data of over 50 million individuals — who have bank accounts, property ownership, luxury vehicle registrations, and foreign travel records — with the FBR for the purpose of expanding the tax base.

Nadra extracted this CNIC-centric data from provincial land and revenue authorities, development authorities, vehicle ownership records, mineral and mines, and the food authority. However, initial batches of provincial data cannot be processed by the FBR due to its complexity and multiplicity.

In certain cases, the vehicles and properties-related data are not verifiable by the FBR and thus cannot be utilized, sources added.

Sources further told Nukta that the FBR will officially inform the provincial departments about the initial findings of the data verification exercise.

It has been repeatedly claimed that the provincial data would be utilized to document wealthy individuals, but practically, provincial data has been of no use so far.

This data was required to unearth hidden assets of individuals leading lavish lifestyles to enhance revenue collection, sources told Nukta.

Sources stated that the FBR now has vehicle ownership data for over 21 million people from all four provinces. Additionally, the development authorities have also shared details of over 0.1 million citizens with the federal tax department.

Moreover, the provincial revenue authorities have furnished over 20,000 CNIC-centric records, while the provincial land authorities have provided land-related details for more than 23 million people to the FBR.

The FBR and Nadra had agreed to expand collaboration and exchange data to determine the actual income of existing taxpayers, register new taxpayers, and finalize tax profiles of non-filers.

Under Section 175B of the Income Tax Ordinance, Nadra shall, on its own motion or upon application by the board, share its records and any information available or held by it with the board for broadening the tax base or carrying out the purposes of the Income Tax Ordinance.

The correspondent asked Chairman FBR Rashid Langrial for comments on this matter, but no reply was received until the filing of this story.